


on the other side

by lazy_daze



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 06:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_daze/pseuds/lazy_daze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Nick have dinner and then have feelings. (This has more angst and less sex than I planned, and also my first time writing this pairing, so I'm a bit nervous, but ENJOY. Set...right the fuck now.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the other side

"Wine weren't bad," says Harry, as they pick up their jackets and head out of the restaurant. It's that not-quite summery not-yet-autumn cool outside, so Nick keeps his jacket slung over his arm, arranges it fussily, wants to slap himself in the face.

"Got some even better stuff back at mine," he says without properly thinking, then wants to slap himself on the other side of his face, or maybe a forehand-backhand double-whammy, when Harry glances at him, raises his eyebrows a bit. Yes, thank you, Harold, it's definitely a bad idea, no need for that face.

"I just - like, I mean--" Nick hates stumbling over his words. His words are his bloody living, they shouldn't betray him like this, especially not around Harry who used to be so impressed with Nick's words, starry-eyed and grinning in the corner of the radio booth. He sighs.

"I know," says Harry, even though Nick doesn't know if he does know. _I think you think you think too much_. Nick's brain needs to take a fucking Valium.

"I just mean," he says more slowly, as they wander down the road, "it's been months, you've been off being a popstar, I've been having the house all done up - be good to catch up. Meet Puppy properly, if you want. Won't be a late one."

"Radio in the morning," says Harry with that grin that makes him look sly even though Nick doesn't think he's trying to be. Things are falling over messily and aching in his chest and he scolds his innards because there is no bleeding point in letting Harry still do this to him. "Not that that always stops you, seem to remember."

"Oi," says Nick, mock offence and hand on his hip. "I am a con--consummate professional, have you know. In bed by ten, I've got a whole nation to entertain, which is more important than feeding popstars my own overpriced wine."

Harry laughs, then, wide and open and familiar. "Yeah, fine. Not a late one, though."

They turn off the main drag, wind through the courtyard towards Nick's, path they've taken a lot of times before, and each step feels nostalgic, overly important, especially as the sound of traffic and people disappears as they turn onto Nick's road, quiet as always.

Nick bloody hates an awkward silence, and now they have one. This was a really stupid idea. He doesn't need awkwardness and misery mixing with the frankly excellent chicken shashlik and white wine he'd scarfed down at dinner, when conversation was easy and familiar and Nick was thinking, hey, cool, maybe we can do this again, proper this time, not fuck it up.

Nick's about to call the whole thing off, tell Harry to bugger off home instead, he needs an early night, when Harry says, "Missed you, y'know."

"Hmm?" says Nick inanely, and Harry glances at him.

"I know things got a bit, like," he says, and doesn't finish the sentence, but Nick doesn't need - or, indeed, particularly want - him to. That's an excellent way of putting it. Concise. Says all it needs to. _Things got a bit, like._

"They did," says Nick.

"But I mean - I really do miss being your friend. Not many people like you, who - get me, like, and. I missed that."

Jesus. Nick stamps down on the urge to prat around with his jacket again. "Missed you too, of course, you idiot," he says, meaning it a shitload of ways but maybe most sincerely the way Harry means it, despite a lot of other shit - just being friends. Nick has a lot of friends, and loves them all, but there was an - ease, the way he and Harry clicked, that he knows is quite precious, much as he wants to shove his face into a hedge for sounding like he's comparing friendship to bleeding jewels.

"Yeah?" says Harry, little shit.

"Why else would I have treated you to dinner when you're the god damned billionaire in this --" he stumbles and recovers, admirably, of course, "--in this equation."

"Cry me a river," says Harry. "You got the bloody house white."

They've reached Nick's now, and Nick has an unwelcome vivid memory of stumbling drunk down the steps, fumbling open the door, Harry warm and giggling at his back, and cuts his little trip down memory lane off at the knees brutally before it gets to the part when Harry gave him the world's most messily enthusiastic blowjob right on the other side of the door then got fucked over the side of the couch -- shit. Too late.

Least it's not the same couch any more. (No-one's said how fucking metaphorical or symbolic or telling or pathetic his rip-out and re-do of the house is, but he's fucking waiting for it so he can tell them in just how many fucking ways they're wrong.)

Nick clears his throat. "Home sweet home," he says, and takes the steps carefully, Harry a warm but polite distance behind him while he digs out his key.

The house is quiet when he gets in - not that common, these days, he likes to fill his house with friends, but that's always been him, not really made for the solitary life. He's both scared and wildly relieved that this isn't a night where Gels is lounging in the living room or Pixie fucking around in his kitchen. Nothing but the sound of Puppy's wheezing little snores coming from the couch - little fucker, she knows she's got a bleeding expensive dog bed for a reason - and Harry's shoes tap-tapping on the hardwood of the hallway.

Then the ominous sound of the door closing, and for the first time in - in - shit. Months. They're actually, properly alone together.

Nick's heart flings itself up into his throat and he makes a face, while Harry's still behind him, trying to shove it down where it belongs. This isn't why they're here, no matter what his body is trying to tell him with stupid rushes of adrenaline; they're here to chat and drink his top-shelf wine and learn how to put them weird bits of themselves and their history back into something that's shaped like a decent friendship again. At least a knock-off version, one that'll do the job; Prada bag with the logo a few millimetres out, something only a connoisseur would notice.

Nick will always notice, but it's better than no fucking bag at all, or carrying around all your shit in a Asda plaggy bag and hoping no-one points it out.

He turns around. "Bloody dog's asleep," he says, "and that's enough of a miracle in and of itself I'm not waking her up, even for Harry actual Styles."

Harry says, "Nick."

"What?" says Nick, even though he knows, he knows what Harry means, what Harry's slow voice and little frown and teeth digging into his pink bottom lip all mean, and this wasn't the plan. Wine. Wine was the plan, and-- "Look, I've got a decent red, but the real nice stuff is white, which I think--"

"Nick." Harry sounds like he's pleading, now, something like a whine - the kind wasn't planned for - in his voice, one that says he's going to get exactly what he wants, because as if Nick of all people can deny him anything.

"Haz," says Nick. "We--" 

Shouldn't? Weren't going to? Fucked it up proper like the last time? There's a look in Harry's eyes and a tightening greedy heat in Nick's stomach that tells him nothing he's gonna say will stop this and there's nothing he even wants to say; he never stopped wanting Harry, for one fucking second.

He closes his eyes and steps in, and Harry's right there to meet him.

They don't fuck around pretending to be polite, or chaste, they've done this too many time and know the other too well; they open up right into the kiss, wet and hot and deep, filthy in a way that sets Nick's heart off banging stupidly in his chest. It feels like it's been forever and it feels like it's been five fucking minutes since he last had this, Harry's hands grasping eagerly at his waist and his tongue an insistent hot slide against his own.

He lets himself, lets himself fall right into it, snogging Harry proper like he's got the right, feeling the hitch of his chest where they're pressed up close, the wet of his spit and the ridge of his teeth and the little tiny noises he makes, everything utterly familiar, and it feels so good, so really fucking bloody _good_ , it's like he didn't know how much he'd missed it until he had it again. and - yeah. He'd missed it a lot.

Harry's eager hands get demanding, sliding around the small of Nick's back and dragging him in close, and their hips bump, Harry nearly all the way hard already as he rubs into Nick shamelessly.

Nick pulls his mouth away with a gasp, and Harry keeps his eyes closed for a second; his eyelashes are dark and soft and his mouth is kissed vibrant red, and Nick's stomach gives a dizzying tug and swoop. He's fucked. So, so fucked. Fucked up, down, sideways and in all manner of fascinating combinations, and only a couple of them are going to be the actually fun kind of fucked if tonight keeps on. He doesn't care. He doesn't fucking care. He's smiling, can feel it tugging at his mouth, and his chest feels full of air, warm and expanding.

"Harry," he says, pointlessly. Harry opens his eyes, slow, looking kiss-drunk and wanton and fucking impossible, this fucking little--

Harry doesn't say anything, but he looks right at Nick, and Nick looks back, and he knows what they're saying, and the fact he still knows Harry well enough that it doesn't need to be out loud doesn't make it any fucking easier. It's something like - give or take a few words and maybe one of them has an extra dollop or two of optimism in there but fuck if Nick wants to think which of them, because Harry's got a learned core of cynicism in him that keeps being proved right - _this is going to happen, but it got fucked up before, and it'll probably get fucked up again, so we can't actually do it, but we're going to do it anyway and just fucking_ see.

Nick licks his lips. He can taste Harry, and it's mental, it's familiar, it's happening again. Okay. He nods a few times. "Okay," he says, and Harry nods slowly, too, mirroring him. "Yeah, okay then."

And he falls back in.


End file.
